Kianna led him up the street, their feet kicking loose rubble, the fog swallowing sound hungrily. They might as well have been ghosts in the gloom, one tall and bladed, one hunched and broken. He hated that he was the shattered one.
He had no idea where she was leading him. He had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with himself, no idea where there was to go in this city. Save for the West End, where the Guild had set up its base on the University’s grounds, all of Glasgow was abandoned and rubble. After the Resurrection, the necromancers had done what they could to tear down the city. First, the Howls came through, snatching up anyone they could for food. Then the necromancers, snaring the rest for converts and demolishing centuries of architecture in the process. Maybe so humanity would have nothing left to return or hold on to. But probably just to be dicks.
He and Kianna had barely gone a block when she turned down what was left of a side street. She guided him over broken concrete and steel girders, everything coated in fog like a bad horror movie set. Except the monsters here were real.
Most of Glasgow had been abandoned, civilians evacuated to safety behind the Guild’s walls, which should have meant there was nothing here for the Howls to hunt. The last few years, the streets had been fairly safe in their emptiness. But now, with most of the country’s resources depleted, the Howls were hungry. Desperate. Scavenging in places they hadn’t been seen. Like Laura, seeking a human to drain of blood.
Humanity might be losing, but that meant the Howls were losing, too. And they were more reckless when it came to assuaging their eternal hunger.
Now, Glasgow’s streets weren’t necessarily as abandoned as they once were.
“Where are you taking me?” Aidan muttered.
A shiver tore through him when a droplet fell on the back of his neck. Please, just let it be condensation.
Another drip. Moments later, the sky broke into a full-on downpour.
He shuddered and Kianna pulled him closer.
“Not much further, love.”
He glanced at her. She sounded concerned. Like, actually concerned. And that concerned him. How much had she heard? How much would he have to explain?
“I’m okay,” he lied.
She just grunted and kept her eyes on the rubble at their feet, navigating expertly over glass and stone, the crunch of their boots muffled in the fog and rain. He wanted to reach for Fire, to wrap the warmth over and through him, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough. He’d drawn too much. Any more, and he might burn himself out or lose control entirely. Again.
Kianna pushed open a steel gate in the side of a tall, mostly intact building, the interior hallway remarkably untouched by the apocalypse. It was still covered in trash, but at least it wasn’t caving in. She flicked her lantern on in the half light, directing him down the hall and up a flight of stairs littered with scraps of clothing and furniture. He noticed she made sure to lock the gate behind them.
Two flights of steps, the darkness dancing with lantern light. Then a hallway, the hum of rain outside. Everything here was steel and concrete, modern and sparse.
“What is this?” he asked. Why were they still in Glasgow? Trevor had told him point-blank he wasn’t welcome here. Not that he really cared what Trevor said.
“A place for the night.” She pulled a key from her pocket and opened a door.
Inside, the flat was clearly awaiting their arrival. A cold but set fireplace, a teakettle beside it. Rugs and pillows, wooden crates and bottles of water, food stores and weapons. Everything was so modern and untouched that for a moment his head spun with anachronism. If not for the weapons, he could almost imagine it was three years ago, before the mess of the Resurrection, when he’d first stepped foot on this accursed island.
“You’ve been preparing,” he mused. His eyes snared on the empty fireplace. A shudder wracked through him, and he nearly toppled them both to the floor.
Shite. He’d drawn even more power than he’d thought. If he didn’t warm up fast, he would catch his death of cold. Literally.
She led him straight toward the fireplace and set him down somewhat gently on a pillow beside the hearth. Without speaking, she lit a match and set the kindling alight while Aidan shivered uncontrollably at her side. She noticed his helplessness, but save for a grunt to herself, she didn’t say anything. She just peeled off his sodden jacket and shirt and threw them both to the nearby kitchen tile, where they landed with wet thwaps. He stared at his dark arms and chest dumbly, his myriad black tattoos making constellations over his skin: alchemical symbols, star charts, Norse war runes, BURN THEM on his knuckles, and even a sexy merman on his pec. All of those tattoos had become like a second skin, symbols of his countless victories. But now, his vision snared on the concentric circles and arched lines on his forearm, the mark that had attuned him to the Sphere of Fire three years ago. The mark that had helped him secure Scotland’s survival and brought him up the ranks until he was co-commander in a country he never wanted to call his own.
The mark that had also, somehow, cost him every single one of those conquests.
Then Kianna wrapped a wool blanket around Aidan’s shoulders, obscuring the tattoos and leaving him to take off his drenched trousers and pants himself.
“I figured this day would come,” she said, settling herself by the roaring fire.
“Did you?” His teeth chattered. He was seconds away from asking her to come under the blanket with him. He needed the warmth.
“Have you met yourself?” she asked. “Only a matter of time before you pissed someone off enough to be exiled. Frankly, I’m impressed it didn’t happen sooner.”
She moved the iron kettle onto a rack by the flames while he scooted closer to the hearth. He looked around the flat, at the weapons, at the boarded windows, his heart dropping with every observation.
This was it. This was his future.
Then he asked the question that had been smoldering in his chest ever since she appeared in the tunnel. “Why are you helping me? After...after what I did?”
She shrugged.
“I hate everyone,” she replied. “You, I just hate less.” She paused and looked at him. He expected an interrogation. That’s the least of what he’d earned.
“Sugar?” she asked. Then began scooping sugar into an empty cup before he could answer.
“How are you asking about tea at a time like this?” he asked.
“Because times like this always call for tea,” she said. She wrapped the handle in a handkerchief and pulled the kettle from the flame, then poured the warm brown nectar into both of their cups. She handed him one, then took up her own in two hands.
For a while, she just regarded him over her cup, her eyes intent through the steam.
He wanted to ask her what she’d heard. He wanted to ask her if Trevor had changed his mind. He wanted to know if Vincent was actually dead, or if it had truly been a nightmare.
Her next words silenced any further questions on his part.
“There are worse things than exile, love.”
He looked at her—his only friend left in the world—at the tea, at the fire.
He stared into the flames, remembering the sound of Vincent’s screams. Remembering how little he’d cared when realization dawned.
There were worse things than exile.
He knew.
He’d done them.